In the five years since its inception, the company has expanded into a global network of over 43 million users – and this pace of growth is expected to continue. In fact, in the hour it will take me to write this article, LinkedIn will register around 3,600 new users.

With every member recording their career history and displaying recommendations from colleagues, clients and suppliers, LinkedIn has effectively become one of the world’s largest databases of candidates, and much of this information can be accessed by anyone.

It’s therefore no wonder that this social phenomenon is causing waves of anxiety in the recruitment community, prompting the return of the argument that if employers have access to potential recruits at the click of a mouse, then the recruiter’s role becomes redundant.

I remember this same line of reasoning being put forward in the mid nineties when Monster.com debuted the Monster job board. The oft-cited claim was that now that companies can access CVs directly, they will no longer need agencies. 

In reality, the opposite proved to be true - the more information and data HR departments have to sift through, the more valuable the recruiter becomes. Remember, agencies are paid a premium in part because they find needles in haystacks faster and more efficiently than companies can themselves.

In the case of LinkedIn, the need for recruitment agencies will remain or grow for two reasons: the obvious one is that LinkedIn now offers heaps more data to sift through. But secondly and more importantly are the relationships. Historically, the best recruiters are those who cultivate relationships and manage extensive networks of people. 

Many recruiters today have built vast networks on LinkedIn, and these are far more personal than those built on job boards. Employers will pay a recruiting fee to access relationships they do not have.

It is therefore clear that the recruitment industry is not under threat – rather it’s evolving into a ‘web-based’ entity that has the potential to be far more lucrative than it has ever been in the past.

At Bullhorn, we recognised this two years ago, which is why our recruitment software integrates fully with LinkedIn.

It’s evident that LinkedIn will have a pivotal role in the future of this industry, and recruiters need to get to grips with it. While clients may look to adopt online recruitment strategies of their own, ultimately, recruiters have the knowledge and expertise to be far more effective at the process.